/lit/ - Literature

boy comes home from school to find perverted elderly gentleman living in his closet, "i'm you," he claims, "from the future," and the boy decides he can take advantage of the situation by sending the elderly gentleman to school and to do chores in his place, it works out splendidly and none realize the deception, it work out so well that the elderly gentleman decides to get rid of the boy altogether.

this would be the end of book four or five of an international bestseller series.

I've missed those threads. I have a couple of them:
>a photographer has a crowdfunding project in which he tries to find the meaning of life in 10 photos or else he'll off himself online
>a digital influencer who has to take care of his image as if he's a brand falls in love with an online brand who emulates a person (like the amazon girl)
>the adventures of karma police and their quest to punish the immoral

a peasant boy finds some joseph smith tier tablets that rewrite the entirety of history as we know it and he proceeds on a coming-of-age adventure to attempt to get ANYONE at all to take his find seriously

>>21778619
Once upon a time there was a faggot called OP, he was the biggest faggot in the land and has sucked and fucked many guys in his lifetime. However he later contracts HIV from one of his lovers and dies from AIDS, the end.

>>21778746
Very rude

>>21778619
Mornin pigge

Idea for a short story:
>Poetin's personal masseuse contemplates strangling him as she gives him a back rub.
Is this a good idea?

A modern rendition of Kafkas trial. The protagonist wakes on day to find themselves not guilty of anything. They spend the novel going abiut their normal, linear life, breaking smaller and insignificant crimes (j-walking, tax evasion, contemplation of petty theft from servo, giving people wrong directions, accepting post for neighbours and not handing it over...) yet they continuously remain innocent, immediatally able to find articles online to justify and defend their actions. Not only that people's lives are changed for the better. So on and so on. Needs to have multipage intricate descriptions of her vagina, and all the things she wants to put in there. The protagonist is so loved and so right they never get to contemplate their mortal sin, and thus never get to see god

Virgin contracts gonorrhea, and they have no idea how. The story is of them searching the troughs of the city looking for the appropriate person to say had given it to her, so that she and her family didn't have to consider the unknown might not be that of a benevolent god

Some sort of a duck is observed by a young man with binoculars. He rushes for his notebook to record the event but his notebook has been stolen. He sees a crimson hot air balloon flying away in the distance and with the aid of his binoculars he realizes his arch nemesis has stolen his notebook. Adventure proceeds.

>>21778765
The opening of From Russia With Love is kinda similar to this.

>>21778619

Not a novel, but might make a decent short story (Chuck Palahniuk meets Clive Barker meets Roald Dahl): —

MC is a crazed surgeon.
He discovers his wife is unfaithful.
He kidnaps the man.
He performs a lengthy operation on him, described in clinical detail.
When the man comes out of the anaesthetic he finds that his entire alimentary canal has been swapped round end-to-end.
His peristalsis now works upwards.
He has to eat & drink through his anus and urinate & excrete through his mouth.

The horror goes off the scale in the twist ending which I haven't thought of yet.

>>21778619
No

>>21778732
This reminds me of a comment by a maths guy called Richard Borcherds, who has bunch of stuff on YouTube. He said, proving the Riemann Hypothesis is the easy part. The hard part is getting anyone to actually read your proof, since high-level mathematicians are inundated with cranks offering them "proofs" of the Riemann Hypothesis and they usually just throw them in the bin.

There might be a decent short story in there somewhere — a guy makes a really amazing discovery but can't get anyone to listen to him. (Wasn't there some actual whistleblower a few years back who posted some really important documents on 4chan and everyone said FAKE AND GAY or something?)

Or how about:


* MC is mild-mannered wacky biochemist.

* He comes up with an amazing new virus which is almost indestructible and would infect the entire world population and destroy it. (A bit like Ice-Nine in Cat's Cradle, The Satan Bug by Alistair MacLean, etc.) It's pretty easy to synthesize, too.

* He realizes someone else is going to find it or stumble upon it sooner or later. Probably sooner.

* The only hope is to discover an antidote / vaccine / whatever, so that if (when) it's used, its effect can be neutralized.

* He realizes this antidote would need big research facilities to discover/make. He can't do it alone.

* He needs to tell the authorities. BUT he needs to tell the authorities in such a way that he doesn't "spill the beans" and basically tell the whole world how to make this thing.

* He approaches a few people.

* His basic pitch is, "there's this really devastating virus which I can't tell you about, but we need to develop an antidote."

* Needless to say, everyone laughs at him.


Not sure where to go with it.

>>21778619
what the FUCK is that HIDEOUS creature?

>>21778619
pige

>>21778619
Man goes to see his dying mother in an hospital. Meets a disabled boy in palliative care. The day before the mother dies, the boy asks if he can see her and gift her a map 'to heaven'. They all find it very cute. Mom dies. Protagonist finds the map in her stuff, brings it home. Now every time he sleeps he's projected for the length of a day an alternate reality. It's literally a ghost city version of the city je lives in. At night dead people are bustling in the streets, and his sense of belonging becomes muddled. It's like Bangkok with partying dead people. He finds himself thinking he might like it there, but every time the clock hits 3:33 he's grabbed by someone who warns him that if he sleeps there, he'll die in real life. Every time he needs to get back to his original world, a black cab comes to pick him up and brings him home, where sleeping is safe. It's all fun and games until a street phone rings. It's his mother on the other side : she's saying she needs the map. He asks her where she is, and she says 'Vaudeville'. Next night, protagonist asks the cab driver to take him to Vaudeville. The driver says nothing and begins driving. On the outside, reality warps. The people he sees are all wearing nice clothes and walking somewhere, but they don't have facial expressions. It creeps him out. When he finally arrives in Vaudeville, what he finds is another ghost town, albeit more middle class. He sees a pamphlet in front of the city gates, and it reads "The (living) rules in Vaudeville :

- Do not answer any questions the dead ask you
- Don't touch anyone, or anything resembling a human with elongated fingers
- Find a safe spot to sleep in before 3:33
- On your way out, climb in the cab don't - under any circumstances - talk to the driver.

If you respect those rules, it is in Vaudeville that you, my lost friend, will find the adventure you want.
Have a safe trip!
- Gerome The Traveller."

The clocks hits 12. He sees people walking in the distance. They are hiding their hands, and they're all staring at him, which makes goosebumps appear on the back of his neck. He runs to find his mother. It is only the beginning.

>>21780173
Make it so over time he gradually becomes more and more frustrated and upset and disillusioned and then decides to release it himself just to get the satisfaction of people believing him.

>>21780243
Yeah that would work. Might be a bit Edgar Allan Poe-esque. His short stories often end with the protag. going mad and doing something foolish.

Another idea I just thought of:

* MC finally finds someone (mysterious person X) to take him seriously. This person will have his own island.

* Mysterious person X gives him a load of resources to develop the vaccine.

* He sets to work.

* While doing this he does a bit of investigation (he doesn't trust X) and discovers X's cunning plan:
— Get plenty of vaccine.
— Vaccinate yourself and your friends and a few hundred million people you approve of. Yes, there will be a racial component involved.
— It's show time!!!


Now you have a choice:

LAME KEK HOLLYWOOD PLOT:
* MC vaccinates the whole world, thereby thwarting X's plan.

COOL PLOT
* MC grabs some vaccine himself and pre-empts X. He vaccinates himself, his friends and a few hundred million people HE approves of and releases the virus before X realizes the vaccine is ready.

>>21778619
An ultra-advanced alien race descends on earth in the guise of God and angels, making a big show of the end times and producing essentially a living paradise for human beings, with one rule: each human has to, in order to enjoy the gifts of paradise, be fucked in the ass by one of the angels once per month. The excuse given nominally is something like "God is love, and God is real, that is, physical, so God is physical love, and embracing God requires embracing Him fully." The actual reason people submit to it is because "God" is so fucking overwhelmingly powerful and the benefits seem to outweigh the costs. Those who refuse to be fucked are exiled to the moon, where they're still treated generously, just not as generously as the people on Earth. There's no plot to overthrow the aliens or anything, they're too powerful for humans to do that, the book is just a portrait of life in the circumstances that emerge, maybe several portraits of life.

The book is filled with metaphors about how people allow themselves to be fucked by the circumstances around them, their government, economic situation, culture, etc.

>>21780041
You have to write this

>>21780211
I like it. You should write it.

>>21780408
Dumb story. A lot of people enjoyed getting fucked in the ass, women included, so this story has no potential at all.

>>21780408
I can think of a few books which have presented this general vibe, i.e. "group of people accept a supposedly 'idyllic' existence, courtesy of a more powerful force, which exacts a certain penalty which they pretend isn't happening".

e.g. 1: In Watership Down, they meet that creepy warren where the farmer feeds them and just snares a few every now and then, and they accept it.

e.g. 2: In American Gods there's that little town which has the old god living with him in the guise of the police chief or something. He makes sure nothing bad ever happens to the town but in return they have to give him a child every year, in the car they put on the ice to sink to the bottom of the lake.

Basically the same as "Paying the monster a tribute of a maiden" I guess.

>>21780408
Now that's what I call subtle symbolism.

Reverse-Batman.

A homeless man with a bizarre level of kinesthetic intelligence is capable of learning whatever movement he observes, and like that he learns a variety of martial arts movements from movies, television and watching local fighters practice in a gym. More exposed to the seedy underbelly of a mega metropolis than anyone else, he is forced to become a vigilante as violent criminals continue to prey on the innocent all around him. Since he has no wealth of resources and his skills are not polished, he doesn't get the level of control over a situation as to choose whether or not he kills his enemies, almost always being forced to kill to survive by the circumstances. People with superpowers and supervillains start marauding the city in their bombastic showdowns, and our reverse batman must try and take some of them down before they do too much damage, going through something of a philosophical journey of self-discovery to face the inner issues that caused him to wreck his life and end up in the streets to begin with.

>>21778619
An atheist pseudo intellectual from reddit or 4chan gets brain damage from SSRI antidepressants in a way which very, very significantly reduces the amount of joy he can get from the pleasures that serotonin is correlated with in neuroscience, as well as permanently numbing his dick. He comes to the conclusion that he will strongly pursue oxytocin pleasures (love) as that is his only real brain-pleasure alternative left in his life. Eventually, through hard work, this leads to him becoming extremely loving, forgiving, and self sacrificing to the point that the novel sort of reveals an irreligious path towards Christlike love that is completely without Christ or any need to sacrifice one's pursuit of their own happiness.

>>21778619
Bitch look like he wearin a Pamper.

>>21778619
There is a coordinated internet outage following the vicious murder of a well-known tech oligarch. A solitary alcoholic uses the internet outage as a springboard to reset his beliefs and lifestyle. He starts a crime spree on his way to the pacific northwest where he plans to commit suicide.

>>21781255
I would read it

>>21778934
Only good one in here

>>21781472
thanks

Here's a short one I thought up on bus rides home. I'm not sure if I'll ever get to writing it though. Thoughts?

Every person has a code/number. If that code is used in a ritual with at least a drop of blood it grants the caster complete control over the person/they lose their soul. This is a very rare occurrence and people who have even one pawn are treated as the upper class. People guard their codes with their life, not even the families know each others’ codes.
Protagonist had his code announced publicly by an unknown entity. His goal now is to find out who did this as he seeks revenge. No one wants to pass an opportunity like this though. Countless of gangs, mercenaries, noblemen with their puppets and other parties now hunt him in an effort to harm, and extract blood from, him. He has to pick his friends carefully, and keep tham closer, or further away, than ever before.

>>21780041
He'd reverse the operation, the end

I've written some 8000 words of it. Though mostly from only one POV. Here's the plot. The world has ended some time ago, nobody knows how, doesn't matter. So for the most part everybody lives a very medieval life, however there are far advanced technologies, powerful cybernetics, weapons of war and so on, but only a very select few can afford them or even find them. the world is rather desolate so considerable cultivation isn't possible. The story takes part in one of the few cities in the known part of the world, it is ruled by seven Tyrants, sort of half elected half appointed dictators of a sector of the city.

One Tyrant is planning to coup the city and declare himself the Sultan along with two others while the other four have no idea about it. The story follows one of the Tyrants, who represents the pinnacle of wealth and power in the world, who doesn't know of the plot. Another POV is of a middling Bureaucrat in the service of another Tyrant who is relatively wealthy but not worth much on his own, and finally a foreign pilgrim who enters the city for a few months rest to recoup their pilgrimage but gets trapped in the city during the coup.

>excerpt

>>21780211
its pretty good but why not skip the exposition and start the story with him in the ghost world. For it to be a 'story' he's going to need a goal, so maybe he can't get out for some reason and I was going to write tries not to fall asleep, but remembered that's nightmare on elm street.

>>21778694
How would this work? Since hes "elderly" he doesn't look like the boy, so how could he replace him in school or deceive someone?

>>21780408
Its crass and not very funny

>>21781255
But what happens when an asshole throws a bottle at him?

>>21780299
Or he attempts to kill X and during the fight the virus accidentally get released, they struggle to reach the last syringe with the vaccine as the symptoms already begin showing on their bodies. MC reaches it first and injects himself, leaving X to die. He then hurriedly grabs as many syringes as he can carry, along with his plans, and heads out into the world, hoping to find anyone who the virus hasn't reached yet, administering the vaccine by force if he has to, for the sake of the human race.
Neatly ties into a possible sequel where he roams the desolate world, pondering his actions and morals.
?

7 people live in a spaceship on a mission to find a suitable planet for human life as the Earth is soon going to be unsuitable.
the story is told from the perspective of the crew historian and archivist, who feels his academic position isn't respected by his peers.
the space station/ship they travel on is big enough for an entire colony, but everyone is dead as they thought they found a good planet and it was a false positive. only the 7 in our story remain.
eventually they discover an alien lifeform living alone on a small chunk of rock floating in space. this alien lifeform is very similar to a human and quickly learns their language. the alien deduces that the crew are not real and that they are actually existing as a simulation of what it might be like to send humans on an expedition for life. everything they experience isn't actually "real" even though they feel that it is.
the crew grow paranoid and try to figure out whether what they are experiencing is real or unreal and whether or not the alien can be trusted.
idk something like this. might work better as a short story, im still in the planning stage. let me know if u think it would be a waste of time to write

>>21782533
Listen, though a nice premise, it sounds like some amalgamation of about four different stories I have already heard, with not enough unique twists to make it original.
Find one of those movie recaps channels on youtube, and listen to a few videos. You'll get right away what I mean. I'd be willing to bet you'd find at least a few videos with titles that match parts of your story summary.
But what do I know, if you think it's worth your time, you should try writing it.

>>21782550
that's fair, it is a bit unfocused and not too original. i think maybe if i refine it and try to synthesize this amalgamation into one clear, new idea it could be interesting.
i guess it could be described as "uninspired" at its current state.

Fiction novella where OP gets laid

>>21782511
He ducks, and tries to forgive.

Protagonist becomes a traffic light for a day. The problem starts when the protagonist realises it is incapable to distinguish a day because he no longer has any ability to recognise light, he can now only produce light

>>21782487
bump

>>21778619
currently working on a story in verse that is about our current geopolitical/social world but it's told as if it was an old fairy tale

>>21780211
I somewhat recall a similar thing to this appearing on my instagram page, saying an AI, wrote it, back when it was still relatively new. Only difference there was no map and no death prefacing the other happenings described.
I’m not accusing you of plagiarism, just saying that something very similar has already been written, or more accurately, generated.

In a small town appears the corpse of a businessman with some mysterious marks that can be related to a criminal that is already is in prison. The sheriff can't solve the case and a private investigator appears to figure out what is happening. He is a former cop, very close to retirement with enough money to retire, but he prefers to keep in the bussiness due to a tormented past (daughter died and also is divorced). Due to his insomnia he has access to investigate more delicate aspects during the night where his not-that-conventional-techniques can't be judged (I am trying to avoid the cliche of Dirty Harry and similars). Long-short, he starts a torrid romance with the widow, a former socialite with a dark past. She did not kill him, but some stalker that was keeping tabs on her since her twenties. This stalker had time to imitate this other criminal closed in the prison. The private investigator has a face-to-face situation with the stalker, that was living in the basement of the widow once in a while. The private investigator and the stalker die.

bamp

>>21778619
I'd like some feedback on the basic pitch, written for anyone who has held a corpo job, especially engineering. Plan on doing a lot of office shenanigans and funny slapstick stuff, but I'm struggling to come up with a core plot and conflict.

>An engineer realizes the expensive missile system his company sells to the government doesn't actually work.

I'm thinking he tries to cover it up, but maybe everyone already knows, or he tries to expose it, but everyone is trying to cover it up, including the low-level government officials involved with the project.

>>21785774
I'm an engineer. It's more likely that it would work but has a fatal flaw. If it was my fault, I'd be freaked out for security reasons. I don't work in that industry, so for me if something isn't quite what a client wanted, they can pay me extra to fix it or get fucked.

>>21783450
That could be neat

>>21785774
There's a US wasteful military spending plot in Freedom -Franzen

I actually don't think it would be as much of a drama as you think it would, they'd just scrap it and not publicise it. I imagine that kind of thing happens frequently

I’m thinking of writing a game of thrones type of series, except with better writing and I’ll actually finish the work. But idk. I thought about making it just a historical fiction novel maybe alternative history.

>>21780041
Sound like cronenberg take on Skin I Live In

>>21778619
I don't have a novel idea

>>21778619
Fantasy novel about a princess choosing a spouse. 1st part is a love triangle between her, her childhood friend, a haughty prince the courts her. In this setting aristos see an aura around partners whom they'd have a happy marriage with, granted to them by the gods. Princess has trouble believing that such an aura could be accurate but is drawn to the higher-ranked lover despite herself.
This is all diverted midway through the story when she encounters a barbarian who has been overcome by a geass which drives him mad with love of her. This is also sent by the gods, and the laws of man insist that they be wed whether she wills it or no. Rest of her story contrasts the barbarians love at first sight with her tortured indecision from first part. After her story is concluded, the barbarian loses his the geass on him and has to decide for himself whether to stay or leave after he becomes king consort beside her.
Fantasy hooks are the glow (that courting nobles have a visible aura that only they can see) and the geass (which manifests in the replacement of iris/pupils with bright pink heart emblems, but everyone has forgotten what that symbol means)

>>21778619
No

>>21778694
Really writing from the heart, huh anon >>21778712
Short story ideas?
>>21778732
I like it as a comedy story
>>21778765
Who is poetin
>>21778802
Sounds like American Psycho which is all about guilt
>>21778851
AIDS would have higher stakes, wouldn't it? >>21778934
Novel ideas, anon, not dreams you had >>21780041
Gross
>>21780211
Is that the whole thing? >>21780408
I think I remember you posting this before >>21780773
Would work better as a comic. AI generate the panels
>>21781255
Never read a terminally online story I could stand
>>21781468
What's the theme? >>21782487
I Accidentally Lost My Magic Blood Code and Now I Have To Run From Gangs, Mercenaries, And Noblemen
>>21782499
Rimworld/The Incal vibes
>>21782533
Xelee sequence has an interesting colony ship book.
>>21782913
Favorite one so far, completely out of left field
>>21783450
The Fairey Queene
>>21784529
Is there a hook or innovation or do you just have very noir daydreams? >>21785774
Do you have experience with that type of workplace? Feels like that would make or break it

>>21778619
In the 18th century, A family lives a isolated existence on a farm. Frost has sprung on the crops early, and the family is not sure how they will make it through the winter. The Father and the oldest son have been drafted into battle a year ago, and they have not been recieving letters in a long time.
One evening the oldest son comes back with another soldier. The son is braindamaged, The soldier tells the family that he sustained a shot to the head. The soldier offers to help out on the farm, since he has nowhere else to go.
Laszlo the youngest boy of the family, who did not get drafted because of his age, is our protagonist. The strange soldier makes him nervous. Laszlo also believes the brother is trying to communicate with him.
The Soldier is charming and kind to the rest of the family, but he terrifies Laszlo. He terrifies him because of his great knowledge of history, of the future, of plants and animals, of far away lands, of angels and demons, and the nature of god. He also terrifies Laszlo because the strange look in his eye, the way his pupils can dilate and shift on command, how he can make his fingers longer if he wants it, how he never eats, and because, one night after work in the field, he tells Laszlo what he is going to do.

>>21778802
Poetin is autocorrect for Putin, my bad.
You like the idea or not?

I’m writing it today. Wondering whether I should go for the funny/absurdist/kafkaesque angle or more serious/dramatic/suspenseful

>>21778619
I'm 100 pages in about a story where the worst of the vaccine hysteria and die off memes actually happen. It's great, the catharsis is massive in getting to explore a world where there is brutal kharmic justice. It's basically conservatives repopulating the Earth.

>>21787171
Depends on what the point of invoking Putin is. Is he a symbol of actual evil? Are you satirizing the western reaction to him? Not saying the whole thing needs to be a thinly veiled political point, but I'm unsure why you'd invoke Putin otherwise.

>>21787168
That's not a novel idea, that's a first chapter idea. Not bad but I'd need to know what the point is, the style, etc.
>>21787176
Nigga that's almost as bad as the leftists seething. If you're so caught up on the shit, confront a lib about it in person, don't just write seethe fantasies. Call a white woman a nigger

>>21787180
Yeah good question. I guess I fell in love with the image of a massage table in the middle of some giant palatial hall with lots of gold and marble, and then a nervous masseuse waiting for the arrival of her Great Leader just to rub his back. The pompousness and the mystery surrounding Putin juxtaposed against the banality and intimacy of a massage. I was planning on not literally mentioning Putin, but from the description of the imagery and the references in the masseuse’s inner monologue to a war being fought would make it fairly obvious. The thing is I’m not sure of any point I’m really trying to convey. Like I said maybe I just fell in love with the image.

Any advice? Just write and see where it goes?

>>21787198
My only literary opinion is that there aren't enough fun twists in writing. Make a fun twist.

>>21787203
Thanks, fair point. Nothing really *happens* in the story so far. I will try to think of a fun twist.

>>21778619
>A Stalker in the exclusion Zone going through the Red forest for the first time.
In fact I've started writing it. Although I don't think it will go anywhere.

>>21787216
Fanfic? On my sophisticated imageboard?
Anyway what's the Red zone

>>21787219
The Red forest is a real place in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. It is radioactive and well very red, all of the trees are either dead or its lieves have been painted the colour red. The Stalker in universe red forest is not that different other than that it is filled with mutants, dangerous anomalies and radiation.

>>21787029
>I Accidentally Lost My Magic Blood Code and Now I Have To Run From Gangs, Mercenaries, And Noblemen
Sounds like a fitting title if it was a Japanese light novel.
I mean yeah, that’s basically the premise. but its is also a bit deeper than just that.

Basically he has his code revealed for no apparent reason, and as a result he hides from civilization for some time, but is consumed by rage over time and seeks to find and exact revenge on the entity that somehow found the code out, and released it to the public.
He is hunted by the various factions because someone giving another person their code is an extremely rare occurrence, since it basically means they are giving the other person their complete trust/their life as property. People with even one of these “pawns” are considered “upper class” because obtaining a code, by means other than love, either means they are very trustworthy, persuasive or threatening and powerful enough to get it.
And a lot of people want the respect and other benefits that come with getting a basically free pawn.
It mostly serves as a device for cool fight scenes (that are extremely high in stakes, as even a single cut can spell doom for him) but also character development as he learns to trust a few people when he realizes not everyone is seeking to exploit his misfortune.
I was also planning on introducing a big twist after finding the entity, that would give him new purpose, but describing that here would take too long plus it isn’t fully flashed out yet.
The knowledge of the codes, by the way, is innate, and everyone knows theirs from birth.

>>21785941
That's the planned end of the book. After the big overblown comedy and faux drama, the actual government figureheads just write it off in an anticlimax of sorts.
>>21787029
Yeah I've worked in corporate engineering for about 3 years now. I've got a notebook full of bullshit that's happened and been said in the office that I'm drawing on, stuff like poking fun at executive gobbledygook and the shit management and the government does.

>>21780179
a tapir

Man is abducted by aliens to work as a wagie in the alien service industry

>>21785794
thanks, I am about 160 lines in so far, aiming to get to 1,000 minimum by the end of the year.
>>21787029
>The Fairey Queene
that's right

>>21787029
Love you anon

Not so much a novel idea, but I kind of want to create my own setting similar to Discworld for an anything-goes sort of fantasy series I'll write stories in

>>21787168
seems promising.

>>21787029
>what's the theme?
It will be about the dehumanizing nature of technology and how our own complex systems (legal, societal, and technological) compel people to behave less and less like humans and more and more like machines. The protagonist, unconsciously, feels that the only "human" act left is criminality and violence; a naive reaction to this dehumanizing process.

>>21782487
reminiscent of this short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs&ab_channel=KeiichiMatsuda